Thank you to Trevor and to Columba Press for the invitation to speak at this book launch – I am honoured to be asked and delighted to see Equal to Rule in print. I hope and pray that it is read widely, not only within its target audience of the PCI but across church communities in Ireland and further afield.

There is so much that I’d like to say when it comes to the issue of women in leadership and ministry within the church – and isn’t that a scary thing for an audience to hear from a speaker at the start of a talk?

More than listening to me, the most profitable thing you can do is to get your hands on a copy of the book and read what Trevor has said in his inimitable and insightful way. I’m sure that the globe could be encompassed by the pages and pages of print that continue to be written about this issue. For over 20 years I’ve been engaged with, reading, writing, collecting books and articles and more recently blogging about this topic and it is not going away. The volume of material continues to grow. So what Trevor has accomplished in a mere 112 pages is quite a feat. His style is easy to follow and understand, yet beneath that surface is a deep knowledge of complex and hotly debated issues. In other words, something understood profoundly can be explained simply – and Trevor has that all too rare gift.

He covers much ground

Genesis – men and women in the image of God and the Fall

OT women – and their significance today

Jesus and his radically counter-cultural attitude to women

Paul and early church – equal ministry – the difficult texts

Marriage

Worship

Discipleship (Eph / 1 Tim 2)

Leadership (Spirit / gifts)

Practical steps in church life today

Men and women serving in a wide variety of gifts and ministries TOGETHER

Wise words about the need for men to act against the status quo – courage and how hard for women to change power structures

Unity in diversity as an eschatological foretaste – how the church now is to reflect equality and diversity between men and women as a foretaste of the kingdom to come … not obliteration of difference but strength in difference.

Trevor puts it this way,

“In the church men and women should be free to lead but never to the detriment of their manhood or womanhood. Instead, they will rule together in collegiality because men need women and women need men. This is how we truly express the image of God and say to the world – A new day is coming and this is how it’s going to be.”

My second point is that I am not a woman.

This might (!) seem somewhat obvious, but it does have serious implications. I have no idea what it is like being a woman – despite being married to one for 24 years and having two late-teen grown up daughters. However hard I might try, I can’t understand the experiences, feelings and challenges of being a woman – not only biologically, but also what it is like to be excluded from leadership roles where I could use God-given gifts for serving the church ONLY on the basis of my gender, REGARDLESS of my ability, character, experience, training, mind, and heart.

For I’m going to cut to the chase, we need to be clear here. This might sound critical but there are important issues at stake. At heart the male-only leadership position essentially says women cannot hold certain leadership positions because the Bible says so. The argument goes that the sexes are equal but have complementary ‘roles’.

But the fatal flaw is that in normal complementary relationships roles can change (a student can become a teacher). But in male-only leadership, women can NEVER lead – her subordinate ‘role’ is given at birth and is fixed for good. Women, ONLY because they are women, are the subordinated sex for no other reason than gender. However much the male-only leadership view says otherwise (and I have read all the arguments), to put one sex in a permanently and divinely-sanctioned subordinate position to another speaks of inferiority to the ones permanently set over them.

Imagine a Christian white man in Apartheid SA saying to a fellow black believer “Brother, the Bible says we are truly equal, created in the image of God. We are to minister together in service of the Lord, and complement each other within the body of Christ. But your role must ALWAYS be subordinate to mine, I have authority over you. We may be equally intelligent and spiritual and experienced and gifted by the Spirit to lead – but you will never be able to do so because you are black, and the Bible says blacks are not be in positions of leadership. Please don’t question why, it is just because God says so.’ (this illustration is adapted from Kevin Giles)

What might the black man think? Perhaps ‘That sure sounds like a peculiar type of complementarity!’

The problem with ‘complementarianism’ is that it is not complementary –there is NO role that women alone should do and men not do. It too conveniently enforces the status quo. Ultimately it appears arbitrary, without a rational basis.

This is why, ironically, Christian men need to speak out on behalf of women. The status quo favours men. Current power structures favour men. It is particularly difficult for women to challenge the status quo without being seen as self-promoting or power-hungry, and going against the very truth of the Word of God himself …

Again, I can only say I have no idea how this must feel.

John Stackhouse says this

“We men will not change until we want to change … We men need to hear from women about what it’s like to be demeaned, disrespected, or dismissed … Men certainly have responsibility here to speak up on behalf of their sisters, on behalf of justice, and on behalf of the greater good that accrues to everyone as women are treated properly. But we will respond more readily to exhortations from both sexes if we feel it, and feel how important it is. We need this powerful impetus to compel us to undergo the strain of actually changing our minds and hearts. Otherwise, we naturally will stay where we are, in the convenient and comfortable paradigms we have inherited.”

This links paradoxically to a third point – that I look forward to the day when the ministry and giftedness of women should not need ‘defending’ – least of all by men. In a brilliant blog post the Baptist theologian Dr Steve Holmes of St Andrews University said this:

“I have defended the ministry of women in the church in public for a while now, including on this blog.

I don’t think I can do it any longer.

Not because of any lack of calling or gifting in their ministry, but because of a lack in mine.

Take Phoebe Palmer.

She began to be involved in leading a Bible study in New York around 1830. She soon received invitations to preach across the USA and in the UK. Something like 25 000 people were converted by her ministry.

25 000 people. Converted. Does that need defence? Really?

She visited prisons regularly, ran a society helping poor people in need of medical attention, and was involved in an ambitious project to challenge the new problem of urban poverty through the provision of low-cost housing, free schooling, and employment. She had a particular concern for orphans throughout her life.

Challenging injustice on a grand scale. Do you want me to defend that?

…..
And then there’s Catherine Booth. And Mary Dyer. And Catherine of Sienna. And Mother Julian. And Rose Clapham, all-but forgotten, whose first sermon, preached when she was 18, saw 700 miners converted to Christ.

Defend that? Why?

There’s a thousand stories like it. That I know. Ten thousand times ten thousand that have gone untold, no doubt.

And I think of women who I have the privilege to know, who I sit in awe of, some of whom graciously allow me to call them friends. If I could preach one tenth as powerfully or effectively as Ness Wilson, or Bev Murrill, or Miriam Swaffield, or if I had a tiny portion of the vision and capacity to inspire change of Cathy Madavan or Natalie Collins, or if I had some little echo of the pastoral wisdom and visible holiness of Pat Took or Ruth Goldbourne, or if I could even once in my life make something happen the way Wendy Beech-Ward or Ann Holt do every day – then I might think the question of whether these women are permitted by God to lead and preach was worth thinking about. [put in names of women you know]

As it is, no. I can’t defend their ministries. I am not worthy to

But I’m not going to try to illuminate the sun.

And I’m not going to try to dampen the sea.

And I’m not, any longer, going to try to defend the ministry of women in the church.”

My final point is on how to disagree

Students frequently say to me as I teach theology and describe different views – what do you believe Patrick? And they sometimes accuse me of sitting on the fence when I don’t tell them. But as a teacher it is your job to get students to understand both sides of an argument. To be able truly to stand in someone else’s shoes and argue their case as well as or even better than they could themselves – even if you disagree with it profoundly.

That shows that you have taken the time truly to listen and understand the other – without constructing a straw man which you then demolish in a swift bout of self-righteous satisfaction!

There are a range of key areas of differences of interpretation on this issue which include:

– Was male headship established at creation or did it enter the world as a consequence of the Fall?

– What is the significance of women prophets in the OT – an exception or a role model?

– How are we to interpret Jesus’ attitude and actions towards women in terms of roles in the church today?

– Women witnesses of the resurrection – significance?

– No male or female in Christ we are all one in Christ (Gal 3:28) – only a spiritual equality or implications for roles in the church as well?

– Is male authority in church and marriage the biblical norm or a relationship of full mutuality and equality?

– Is Paul setting up a creation-based permanent subordination of women to men, or addressing local issues in the church of his day?

– Are male-female hierarchical relationships actually mirroring something of the relationships within the Godhead of Father-Son-Spirit?

I am concerned that there is an increasingly strident tone to the whole debate – both from ‘hard’ complementarians, especially in the USA and Australia, and from ‘hard’ egalitarians on the other side.

So, especially given this context, it is all the more important that, even if we hold strong views on this question (and you may have picked up that I am off the fence on this one) – we are all the more obligated to show grace and charity to fellow Christians with whom we disagree.

Trevor models grace and charity in his approach. This is not a polemical book. He does not misrepresent those who hold different views, he describes their positions accurately. He focuses on a positive biblical vision of men and women equal to rule. His emphasis is on what all Christians can agree on and how this issue has not historically been, or should become, an issue of division. For this he is to be commended.

It’s interesting to note that your post makes no reference to the complementarity in roles between the Father and the Son in the Trinity which is precisely what the complementarity of roles between men and women echoes. If under point 2 it really is a ‘fatal flaw’ if complementarity cannot change then according to such a view we worship a flawed God. Jesus says ‘For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.’ John 6:38.

Greetings Neil and welcome. Sporadic access to internet at the moment, just briefly to say that 1) the post had a particular context and wasn’t intended to be comprehensive on what are multi-stranded issues 2) I think we need to be cautious about drawing ‘precise’ parallels from Trinity to gender relationships – either for ‘egalitarian’ or ‘complementarian’ ‘sides’. I don’t have the refs to hand but one example is Michael Bird has written and blogged about this here http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2012/06/trinity-gender-and-subordination/ – and links to other writers.